When dosing a large number of animals in a short period of time, for example in a single veterinary visit to a beef feed lot or to a chicken farm, a veterinarian or animal husbandry worker will often use a dosing gun injector. The dosing gun injector allows the user to dose a large number of animals without having to carry a large number of single dose vials. One such one such dosing gun injector is shown in FIG. 1.
The dosing gun injector has a needle in the cap, which is screwed on to the neck of a large vial of vaccine or other treatment to be injected into the animals. The needle in the cap punctures a seal on the container that prevents contamination of the vaccine. The vial is typically turned upside down in order to prevent any air in the vial or dosing gun from being injected into the animals. The vaccine or other treatment is typically injected by depressing some triggering device. As shown in the example of FIG. 1, the two parts of the handle are compressed together, thus pumping a predetermined and metered portion of the treatment through the dosing gun injector.
Traditionally, vaccines and other treatments are stored in glass vials. As can be readily appreciated, glass, though having the beneficial effect of typically not reacting with the material it contains, is relatively hard and readily breakable. Large vials, of the type commonly used with dosing gun injectors, are approximately the size and shape of the bottles shown in FIG. 1A, and generally contain either 500 ml or 250 ml of the treatment. Because this is sufficient vaccine or treatment for dosing a large number of animals, the accidental breakage of such a container can be very costly.
However, despite its breakability, glass remains one of the most common materials for storage of vaccines and other animal treatments. One benefit of glass is that it is not reactive with most treatments, as some plastics can be. Another reason glass continues to be used are the manufacturing costs involved in switching to other materials. Further, because many vaccines are live cultures, they can only properly be stored in sterile containers. As a result of the heat typically necessary for sterilization, glass remains a common choice for storage of vaccines and other animal treatments.
Due to the breakability of glass, attempts have been made to manufacture a shield or protective cover in which to place a glass bottle and prevent its breakage. One example of such a bottle can be seen in FIG. 2, where a protective cover for the drug MICOTIL is shown. The cover or sleeve in which the glass container is placed is formed of polypropylene and has flanges on both the top and bottom of the sleeve. When impacted, the flanges help distribute and reduce bottle stresses. The bottle is supported in the sleeve at both ends to prevent its movement within the sleeve. However, experience has shown that the approach evidenced by the MICOTIL protective cover has not proven to be wholly effective in preventing the breakage of bottles stored therein. In particular, this device fails when subjected to localized impacts which are concentrated in a small area. For example, the device shown in FIG. 2 will fail if a stress is imparted to the cover of the device at some point between the two flanges.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to addressing these problems associated with existing containers.